The experiences of an ordinary Dane

Denmark voke up to a day of unrest.

A school class was supposed to visit a mosque tomorrow and it was demanded that the girls had to wear a scarf covering their head. A very brave mother redrew her girl from the visit after learning that the fate of her girl would not be respected.

When public learned of the cruel fate the mother had saved her girl from one of the most massive protests against the entire visit exploded from nowhere. On several message board across our nation treads with support for the mother was created:

Skal dansk elev bære tørklæde?, thread on the message board of BT - Danish newspaper
Mor siger nej til tørklæde i Danmark , thread on dk.politik - usenet group

Why all that attention?

Well, for two reasons.

First, our ongoing civil war between etnic youth gangs and biker gangs have forced people to demand more security and stand firm on the values of our 1,000 year old culture. There is really no need for any of our children to visit another culture. We have excellent books in school to provide information about alsmost every kind of subject the children needs to know about.

Second of all a scarf functions like a school uniform. Some of the identity of the child is removed and the damage can last well into adulthood. We are aware of this. Even people in Danish prisons don’t wear uniform.

This mother took action, she took responsability for her child.

May God bless her!

Today the central government in Copenhagen launched their new tax-proposal.

The most damaging parts of the proposal has been removed. State grants to students are kept so students coming from poor families can get a high school exam. Otherwise they would have been forced to seek loansharks on a street corner as bank have been too expensive to use in relationship with student loans for the last 30 years even when the state have put up security.

I remember an interest of 25 percent back when I applied for a student loan. I dropped out and made a good career instead.

Because the members of the Danish parliament are somewhat old - some being around 60 or 70, they also looked at how people handled the interest from their house in relationship with their taxes. To protect their own agegroup they will reduce the percentage which are deductible for people with a lot of expences to interest. It will hit young new house owners hard - very hard.

But it is their own fault. They have failed to vote for young people sending the old politicians on pension. All knows that power currupts. Of course the old geekers want to protect their own generation. There is no need for this tax proposal. What is needed are what all the other countries are doing: They protect house owners and try to kick the economy back in gear.

The most damaging part of the tax proposal is however extra tax on sugar. It can shut the entire information technology business down and force them abroad!

Because we pay a lot in tax, most of the pay people inside the industry get, is easy and unlimited access to cola. It is their meal. It is their motivation to turn up on work every single day working +20 hours with very few hours sleep.

This proposal will punish hardworking people. It will lower the morale and properly send the bosses out in the world in order to seek a new placement for the jobs a firm can generate.

It almost seems as the present government in Denmark is trying to destroy industries using information technology.

I don’t understand this hate for the private sector, they are showing right now.

I hope that the present primeminister choose to resign, so we can have a new election and clear the air and start saving our nation.

While most nations in the world are trying to get the economy moving again, Denmark is talking tax-reforms due to the burden created from our huge expenses to humain aid and our commitment to the 11′th crusade (Afghanistan and Iraq).

One of the areas where cuts are being discussed the the aid to students. Many believe that a modern society where the use information technoligies are heavy used creates a demand for the students to take longer education.

However as a part of the tax-reform grant will now only be given for 4 years. If the students need more money they can go to a bank and take a loan. Loans for students have the highest interest of all. Many people who today are in their 40’s or 50’s have never been able to work because the minute they get a job they have to pay their student loan back and they cannot afford it. They have to stay on welfare if they want to be able to feed themselves.

But the lobbyists defending the tax reform are trying to approach the media with stories about how students can live and eat cheap.

One of this stories was published today.

Ban on spagetti and meat, Metroexpress (Article in Danish)

This story tells how students can live in colleges and eat cheap if they plan well and are enough people to enter this common economy.

But this story has two errors.

For once the wall has been torn down. We are not living in a age where communists have anything to say. People wont agree on a common diet. They have enough self-esteem to decide what to eat every evening.

Second of all colleges with a lot of sharing all over Denmark are being shut down. People want to live on their own while being educated or drop out and get a job. No kitchen or bath being shared with others. Developers are telling of a huge demand on colleges where we in reality are talking of single user apartments with limited contact to other students.

So the tax-reform is to be seen as an attack on students coming from the working class with a non-academic background.

The days where Denmark was a country giving equal oppotunity to students from all kind of socials background are over. Spoken in a more common phrase:

Denmark is no longer a welfare society

Today United Kingdom denied a member of the Dutch parliament entry to their country.

Of course I can understand that United Kingdom would try to prevent convicted criminals like Martha Stewart from entering their country. They have a history of sending criminals away to United States and Australia. Penal transportation was a part of United Kingdom’s history for several hundred years.

But the Dutch member of the parliament is not convicted of any crime. All he did was to make a documentary about a certain religion. Of course there were protests like when we won the Cartoon war, where aggressive forces outside Europe wanted democracy to bow and lick their feet. As a nation we Danes stood shoulder by shoulder and defeated the ignorant countries around the world. It was a huge win and our biggest effort in the war against terrorism.

I have to ask:

• Can we be in a union of countries where one member state can deny parliament members given a mandate by citizens in their home country access to another member state?
• Could California deny a congressman from North Carolina entry to California?
• Is this not the end of the European Union?

I would have to say Yes. In fact the breakdown started last year where the European Union decided that small parties were not allowed to introduce new legislation.  Members of the parliament – among one I have voted for – could no longer do this part of their job.

Democracy was about to dismantled – by laws made by the politicians themselves.

I know that United Kingdom is among the more skeptical countries inside the European Union. Is the action in reality direct attack on the concept of cooperation between the countries in Europe? Do they want the old European order back?

I believe that they in reality envied the Coal and Steel Union made between 7 countries which became the European Common Market. They were once a strong country with colonies all over the world and now they are reduced to just one minor country among some 20 countries which function better and all have their unique identity.

I have been in the United Kingdom. I have seen their traffic. They don’t drive as aggressive as here in Denmark. They don’t drive as fast as we do. They are not as brutal as we are when we need to arrive at a certain destination in time. It must affect the competitive ability in their industry. In globalized world a high degree of mobility is the answer to success and the UK has failed.

So maybe they needed this event to profile this odd position and tell the rest of the countries in the European Union that they don’t respect their voters just to send a message that they would protect their home market. A strong message sounding “Stay away” would prevent firms from entering the British market.

If the purpose was to send a message to the European Union that the changed demographics in Britain has made the government reconsider their membership status of the European Union, then the decision to ban the Dutch member of the parliament access to their country can be understood.

Sources:
Dutch MP refused entry to Britian

Most of my family lives in the nortern part of Sealand in Denmark in a town called Frederiksværk. However my job made me move to Skaelskoer in the south of Sealand where I work at the Brewery.

For many years I have been used to drive through Slagelse, Ringsted and Roskilde when I needed to visit them. Those years are over now.

The federal government up in Copenhagen have decided to raise a demand for a new 4 lane highway between Ringsted and Roskilde. For such a project they need local support, so they have mounted stationary speed traps along the road, so the speed will be reduced with 10-15 miles.

We have already lost jobs the recent months due to our reduce ability to deliver our goods in time. People I have spoken with expect more un-employment the next 12 months as result of this attack by our government.

The travel time will be increased with minutes!! They know that up in Copenhagen and it wont be long before the local communities in the two cities demand a new highway. That’s how it is in Jutland. Enforce speed limits and even towns with no more than 15,000 citizens get their own highway. I was a part of an expedition to Aalborg - major city somewhere far away in Jutland. (It is not something I enjoy. While they call themselves Danes, they are acting like people from a foreign nation.) While visiting the place our hosts decided to invite us up to Frederikshavn for a formal dinner. It took no more than 20 minutes to drive up there with a speed close to 85 miles per hour. We were quite alone and whenever we saw other cars they traveled with the same speed. There are 10 times more cars traveling between Ringsted and Roskilde. Surely this stretch needs a highway. Surely the drivers can reach their destination sooner and start working in their job sooner earning more money to the society.

But until the highway is built I am cut off from my family. We have been busy trying to be finished establishing us on Facebook so we can be updated about how things are going. Thank God for the Internet!

Sometime I feel like the politicians in our parliament are totally cut off from reality. All other countries in the world are working on rescueplans for houseowners, banks and trying to reeducate their workforce to be prepared for future challenges.

In Denmark they are talking tax reforms which would send 5 percent of all houseowners out in the street. Our climate don’t allow us to create tent cities like in the States, so we have seen several examples where a parent are forced to kill the entire family off. They are thinking of cutting students of from government grants, so their only chance for an education is to go to the nearest loan shark around the corner. When I was young the interest for a loan was 20-25 percent if you told the bank that it was for education and they believed that you were trying to break free of your social heritage. Denmark is run by a small elite and they don’t like people who wan’t to mingle without having the right background.

During the recent years they have altered our education system so Danish grades count less than foreign ones, so all know that foreign students in Denmark are moochers. They have hired spys among the rich kids in order to locate producers of pirate copies of books. At Danish schools writing a expensive book for your students to use is generally considered a huge part of your salery as a teacher so students coming from a poor background are often buying outdated books from former students or simply a pirate copy. Anyway they rather like foreign moochers than poor students or immigrants occupying good jobs. After all also most of the immigrants were imported to serve a McJob career in Denmark before leaving when they are to retire from the active workforce. I consider it an error by best when they believe that their sons and daughters should have another future than their parents. They should like us from the working class respect their social heritage and seek a McJob career like their parents if they want to show us from the “old” working class respect.

Like with all other areas in the Danish society our politicans are out of touch with reality. They have introduced extremely tough laws:
 
Of course not so tough laws like they have in California where a young Danish boy named Lellan was sentenced beyound all sense, but in this case xenophobia played a huge part.

Of course not as tough as the laws in Norway where a fine for nothing can be a months pay. Many Danes believe that they are as extreme as people in Iran handling adultery.

Of course not as tough as the laws in the United Kingdom where a mobile phone in a car used or not can put you in prison for many year regardless if it was on or not, regardless if the person you hit ran a red light and didn’t had light on at nighttime. Generally you shouldn’t drive as a foreigner in UK, because if an accident happens in town they blame it on you regardless of the fact that you were not a part of it. A Danish soccer player discovered that the hard way.

But trafic laws in Denmark are tough. Since we did open the bridge to Sweden where they cannot cope with even skin milk without being drunk only a beer or two can get you convicted of DUI. As result many worker don’t even know the names of their co-workers if they are more than 5 in the firm because they are unable to socialize after work.

So like many of the people I work with I have been cut off from my family due to the speed traps. I am tired and angry at our government.

And … Yes, of course I will support a new highway between Ringsted and Roskilde regardless of the cost. Those valuable minutes and seconds they have stolen from me shouldn’t come for free.